Information for Authors

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

SUBMISSION

Papers are considered on the understanding that their substance is not already published or being offered for publication elsewhere.

Manuscripts should be submitted by email to the Editor (to email: jmollstud@nhm.ac.uk), but subsequent correspondence may be with an Associate Editor. Receipt will be acknowledged. All manuscripts will be peer reviewed before publication.

The initial submission should include both a Microsoft Word document (text and tables only) and a PDF file less than 10 MB in size (including text, tables, figures and supplementary material). Text should be formatted with continuous page and line numbers. Following acceptance, final submission should consist of a copy of all text material in Word and individual high-resolution electronic figures (see below for format).

Contributors are asked to follow these instructions closely. Failure to comply will cause delay and may lead to the return of the manuscript.

GENERAL PRESENTATION

Papers should be written in clear, concise English. Sentences should not begin with abbreviations or numerals.

The first page of the manuscript should consist of: title (upper and lower case); authors' names (upper and lower case) and their full postal address(es) (italics); short running head (capitals); footnote with name and email address of corresponding author.

This should be followed by: Abstract (on separate page); main text; Acknowledgements; References; figure captions and tables (on separate pages). Indicate the approximate position of each figure and table in the margin of the text.

Hierarchy of headings should not normally exceed two: main headings (centred, capitals) and subsidiary headings (on the left, in italics). Do not number headings; avoid footnotes.

The main text should normally consist of: Introduction; Material and Methods; Results (or Systemic Descriptions); Discussion. Methodology must comply with national regulations governing experiments on living animals.

In the Acknowledgements external sources of funding for the costs of research and publication should be listed. Where appropriate, authors may also wish to acknowledge intellectual input from others (including reviewers), collection permits, research permissions and other forms of assistance.

Tables should be presented on separate pages, numbered with Arabic numerals and with the title (in the format: 'Table 1. List of localities.') at the top of the page. They should be referred to as 'Table 1', etc. in the text.

SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

Supporting material that is not essential for inclusion in the full text of the manuscript, but would nevertheless benefit the reader, can be made available by the publisher as online-only content, linked to the online manuscript.

The material should not be essential to understanding the conclusions of the paper, but should contain data that are additional or complementary and directly relevant to the article content. Such information might include more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, or additional figures (including colour, which is published online-only at no charge to the authors).

All text and figures must be provided in suitable electronic formats. All material to be considered as Supplementary Data must be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript for peer review. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication. Please indicate clearly the material intended as Supplementary Data upon submission. Also ensure that the Supplementary Data are referred to in the main manuscript where necessary.

NOMENCLATURE AND SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTIONS

Italicize the names of genera, subgenera and species, but not those of higher taxa. When first mentioned, specific names that are the subject of the research should include the authority and date. Descriptions of new taxa and taxonomic revisions must comply with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. New taxa and nomenclatural acts should be registered with ZooBank (www.zoobank.org).

Headings for all taxonomic categories in taxonomic papers should be centred and in bold (including authorities and 'new species', etc.).

Subsidiary headings for taxonomic descriptions should be to the left and in italics, with text continuing on same line [e.g. 'Anatomy (Figs 2, 3): . . .']. They should optimally include, in the following order: [Synonymy] this does not require a heading; Types; Etymology (for new taxa); Material examined; Diagnosis; Description (or separate headings for Shell, Radula, Anatomy, etc.); Distribution; Remarks.

Synonymies should be in 'condensed' format, i.e. each specific name followed through its various generic combinations in order of date of first usage, with subsequent references to the same genus + species following on chronologically, as in the example:

Diagnoses and descriptions must be given in 'telegraphic' style, unless full sentences are required for detailed explanations.

The final entry is an example of a misidentification, not the introduction of an available name. Note that a long dash must separate taxon and author except in the case of reference to the original description. Full references to the authors cited in synonymies (not including authors of homonyms) must appear in the final reference list at the end of the paper.

ANIMAL ETHICS AND WELFARE

Authors must adhere to international guidelines and standards for the ethical use of animals in research, the legal requirements of the country in which the work was carried out, and any institutional guidelines. Such regulations often make explicit provision for treatment of cephalopods. If applicable, authors should state (within the Methods section) the name of the local and/or national body that grants approval for the use of animals in research and the reference number for animal ethics approval of the protocols applied in the work. If ethical considerations arose in the course of the study, the author should describe in the manuscript how those considerations were addressed.

REFERENCES

References in the text should take one of the following forms:

'Nisbet (1973) said ...'

or '... (Nisbet, 1973) ...'

or '... (Merdsoy & Farley, 1973; Nisbet, 1973; Anderson, 1980) ...'

Do not use 'loc cit.'. The first time a paper with up to three authors is referred to, give all the authors' names; thereafter use the form X et al.; for papers with four or more authors use et al. throughout.

References are listed alphabetically; the styles of entry to be used are:

Journal titles are printed in italics and cited in full with the volume number in bold.

If you use EndNote and/or Reference Manager to facilitate referencing citations (not required for submission), this journal's style is available for use.

RESEARCH NOTES

Short manuscripts (no longer than six double-spaced pages of text) that require rapid publication can be submitted as Research Notes. They are normally methodological notes or on subjects of exceptional interest.

There should be no headings and no abstract; acknowledgements should be brief. The title should be in bold lower-case type, the authors' names in upper-case and their addresses in italics.

References should be cited as in full papers.

ILLUSTRATIONS

All illustrations should be referred to in the text as 'Figures' (or, if in parentheses, as 'Fig.' or 'Figs') and numbered in a single series with Arabic numerals. (Note that figures in another work are referred to as 'fig.' or 'figs'.)

Colour figures can be published if necessary for the subject. Otherwise colour figures will be published at the authors' expense at a cost of £250 per colour figure.

Electronic images can be accepted in the following formats:

(1) Editable EPS files (resolution should be a minimum of 300 dpi)

(2) Editable Word or Powerpoint files (image files embedded into Word or Powerpoint are often not good quality).

(4) High resolution PDF. We can accept figures in PDF format. But, it is important to choose the correct job option (e.g. high quality print) in the distiller so that figure is of high quality.

(5) High resolution Tiff, preferably with LZW image compression (check settings while exporting to Tiff from the original application). The image resolution we require is minimum of 300 dpi; text and the images have to be sharp.

Colour figures must be saved as CMYK colour not RGB.

Illustrations should be supplied at the size they are to appear in print and prepared so that they fit into a single column (85 mm wide), or across the breadth of the page (175mm wide), or occupy a full page (235 mm deep x 175 mm wide). In all cases sufficient allowance must be made for the figure caption to appear beneath a figure. All figures must be prepared to a standard ready for publication.

Illustrations must each carry a scale bar and not magnifications in the figure captions.

Lettering should be in a sans-serif font (e.g. Helvetica or Arial), with final printing size no more than 3 mm. Each component of a composite figure should be given a capital letter; labels and abbreviations should be in lower-case letters.

Captions for figures should be grouped together in sequence and placed at the end of the paper. The caption format for composite figures should be, for example:

Permissions

In order to reproduce any third party material, including figures or tables, in an article authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder and be compliant with any requirements the copyright holder may have pertaining to this reuse.

When seeking to reproduce any kind of third party material authors should request the following:

(i) non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the specified article and journal;
(ii) electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium;
(iii) the right to use the material for the life of the work; and
(iv) world-wide English-language rights.

Authors should also include a statement indicating that permission has been obtained in the relevant legend/footnote and provide the Editorial Office with copies of any relevant paperwork.

A template permissions request letter can be found at the end of the above document.

PROOFS, OFFPRINTS AND COPYRIGHT

A link to the proofs in our online system will be sent (by email) to the corresponding author only; it is assumed that only printer's errors and factual mistakes will be corrected. More extensive alterations will be charged to the author.

Details of free online access will be sent to the corresponding author, who may then circulate them to co-authors. If the purchase of offprints is required, a completed offprint order form must be returned with the proofs. Late orders submitted after the journal is in press are subject to increased prices.

Orders from the UK will be subject to the current UK VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge. Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number.

It is a condition of publication in the Journal that authors grant an exclusive licence to the Journal of Molluscan Studies. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. As part of the licence agreement, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication.

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online licence to publish form.

Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.

OPEN ACCESS OPTION FOR AUTHORS

Journal of Molluscan Studies authors have the option to publish their paper under the Oxford Open initiative; whereby, for a charge, their paper will be made freely available online immediately upon publication. After your manuscript is accepted the corresponding author will be required to accept a mandatory licence to publish agreement. As part of the licensing process you will be asked to indicate whether or not you wish to pay for open access. If you do not select the open access option, your paper will be published with standard subscription-based access and you will not be charged.

Oxford Open articles are published under Creative Commons licences. Authors publishing in the Journal of Molluscan Studies can use the following Creative Commons licence for their articles:
• Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC-BY)

Please click here for more information about the Creative Commons licences.

You can pay Open Access charges using our Author Services site. This will enable you to pay online with a credit/debit card, or request an invoice by email or post. The open access charges applicable are:

Please note that these charges are in addition to any colour/page charges that may apply.

Orders from the UK will be subject to the current UK VAT charge. For orders from the rest of the European Union, OUP will assume that the service is provided for business purposes. Please provide a VAT number for yourself or your institution, and ensure you account for your own local VAT correctly.

SELF-ARCHIVING AND ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT POLICY

Authors may deposit the accepted manuscript of their article into PubMedCentral, other subject repositories or institutional repositories, but must stipulate that public availability be delayed until 12 months after the first online publication. For further details of this policy please visit: Author Self-archiving Policy.

LANGUAGE EDITING

OUP offers pre-submission language editing through Oxford Language Editing, a service for researchers all over the world. Language editing, particularly if English is not your first language, can be used to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by the journal editors and reviewers. Visit www.oxfordlanguageediting.com to find out more about the freelance editors available and the different services offered. Please note that edited manuscripts will still need to undergo peer-review by the journal.